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American jfaunbvpmtn'x Association 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRIAL 

EDUCATION 



Presented at the Toronto Convention, June 8-12, 1908 

Your committee on industrial education takes pleasure in re- 
porting - an increasing interest, in all parts of the I nited States 
and Canada, in the discussion of the problem of how to educate 
the millions of industrial workers to that degree of mechanical 
skill and intellectual efficiency which is necessary to maintain 
national welfare and progress in civilization. 

During the last week of January your chairman attended the 
annual meeting, at Chicago, of the National Society for the 
Promotion of Industrial Education, where some fort}' speakers, 
selected from among manufacturers, educators, professional 
men, lahor leaders and philanthropists, presented reasons why 
it is necessary to create a system of industrial schools. There 
was no question of the unanimous conviction among the large 
gathering of professional and practical men that something must 
he done along lines of industrial education af any cost. 

But as to the ways and means by which such a system of 
schools is to be established there was an endless variety of opin- 
ions and nothing definite offered to help towards the speedy 
solution of the problem. Your chairman was honored with the 
request to explain to the meeting the workings of the German 
Continuation and Trade Schools. 

Early in the year the attention of your committee was called 
to a bill before Congress, introduced by the 1 Ion. Charles R. 
Davis, of Minnesota, the purport of which was the raising of a 
per capita tax of ten cents to establish and maintain industrial 
and agricultural high schools, one-half of the proceeds to be 
appropriated for industrial high schools in the cities and one- 
half for agricultural high schools in the rural districts. Refer- 
ence to the bill was made in a recent issue of our Transactions. 
Your chairman considered it in the interest of the American 
Foundrvmen's Association to support the bill and asked our 
officers to write to their Representatives in Washington in sup- 
port of the bill. Recently your chairman had the honor to ap- 

l ! 

MAY 3 1910 



pear before the State Educational Commission of Pennsylvania, 
a commission created by the Legislature to revise the school 
laws and school procedure of Pennsylvania. He was assigned 
the pleasant duty to impress upon the attention of the Commis- 
sion the necessity of school play grounds and a state school 
architect. The problem of industrial education also received 
a good deal of attention by the Commission and your chairman 
was likewise permitted to give his views upon that subject. 

Ypur Committee sent out 500 copies of last year's address 
to the Foundrymen, as published in the November Transactions. 
Most of these were sent to professional educators with the ob- 
ject of calling their attention to the educational needs of our 
industries. The acknowledgements received unanimously ex- 
press the fullest approval of the ideas advanced in that address, 
difference of opinion referring only to slight minor details. Thus 
is won the confidence of the school people without whose help 
the industries cannot solve, the problem of industrial education. 

Your chairman also wrote to a number of educators all over 
the country asking for their advice and co-operation, and offer- 
ing' the co-operation of the American Foundrymen's Association 
in return. A number of very courteous replies and valuable 
suggestions have been received for the guidance of your com- 
mittee. 

It appears that the National Association of Builders Ex- 
changes has also a committee on industrial education in the field, 
and in answer to a letter, received from the secretary of that 
Committee asking for advice and help in their work along the 
same lines your committee is engaged in, the desired information 
was given and promises made to continue the correspondence. 

Your Committee therefore reports progress. 

The voluminous discussions at the Chicago meeting of the 
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, the 
proceedings of other societies as far as they relate to this prob- 
lem, the extensive correspondence of the chairman of your 
committee, while universally admitting the urgent necessity for 
the establishment of industrial schools of one form or another, 
give no practical, tangible and definite suggestions as to the 
methods of raising the revenue to establish and support a system 
of industrial schools or trade schools; how teachers are to be 
obtained for these schools, where the training schools for the 



teachers are to be found, how we are to get the millions of 
boys and girls into the industrial or trade schools, even though 
the money for their establishment and maintenance has been 
forthcoming; how to keep the boys and girls of [3 and 14 from 
rushing into shop, store and factory to earn a pittance for spend- 
ing money when the standard of living is so high that common 
sense frugality is considered a badge of poverty punishable by 
exclusion from society. Xor have we ever heard of any sug- 
gestions made in convention or out of it how we are to prepare 
those millions of wage workers who are destined to carry on the 
minor parts of our modern industrial activity, the results of 
which form, in the aggregate, an important link in the success- 
ful management of a modern establishment, as well as the ma- 
terial welfare of our national industrial fabric. 

Xor yet have any suggestions been forthcoming thus far, how 
we are to prepare the millions of industrial workers, skilled 
and unskilled, for the complex duties and responsibilities of life 
under the changed social and economic conditions from what 
these conditions were even twenty years ago. Any scheme of 
industrial education for any specific class of industries, or the 
nation as a whole, will remain one-sided and inadequate if it does 
not take this into consideration. 

The higher skilled mechanic acquires with his education a 
certain degree of culture, and the variety of mental activities, 
set free by this education, enables him to adjust himself to the 
cultural requirements of his environment ; the semi-skilled or 
unskilled industrial worker does not acquire this mental power, 
or if he has acquired it, it is in danger to be largely lost through 
the unavoidable specialization of modern methods of production. 
His education must, therefore, be supplemented even more care- 
fully by a civic-ethical education as a foundation whereupon 
the peace and welfare may rest secure among the majority of 
our industrial workers. 

Think of the consequences to society of training millions of 
mechanics by a system where the older "kid" or the "kid" above 
is the teacher of the younger "kid" or the "kid" below, with no 
allusion to the moral sense of duty, or responsibilities to society, 
no conception of the relation of his work to the work of his 
neighbor or to the welfare of the community. A barbarian may 
be a verv ingenious man. but he remains a barbarian for all 



that. To insure the peace, and harmony and welfare of society 
and to preserve our civilization, we need something else in our 
industrial education than an education which trains for in- 
creased productive capacity only, and nothing else. Nor can 
we meet the much talked of foreign competition with any one- 
sided productive training when our competitors look to the 
cultural training of their mechanics as well as to their skill. 
An education which trains the individual to take all advantages 
out of the social soil without at the same time training the 
individual to enable him, or make him desire, to put something 
back into the social soil as a fertilizer, as it were, such a train- 
ing will defeat itself in the long run and become a menace to 
our institutions and to society. 

If you ask what assets we have in our educational system to 
meet the industrial requirements, the answer is that our assets 
are rather poor to start business with. The manual training 
high schools and the few endowed trade schools train their pupils 
away from the shops, and therefore do not reach the great mass 
of those who are to make their living as practical mechanics 
and helpers. In quite a number of high schools manual training 
has been introduced, but it confines itself chiefly to woodwork 
because of lack of funds for a more expensive equipment and 
lack of room. What little there is done goes but a little ways 
because the work done is along lines of mechanical dexterity 
chiefly and the drawing and academic part of the instruction 
is cramped for time, being obliged to go along with the classical 
course, the scientific course, and perhaps some other course. 
Moreover, the boy who goes to high school rarely cares to go 
into the shop as an ordinary mechanic. This leaves us with 
manual training in the common school as the really practical 
available asset to begin a system of industrial education with. 
Tf this manual training is made more technical and reorganized 
otherwise to meet the needs of the industries and changed social 
conditions, it will serve excellently as a preparatory course for 
specific trade education, or as a general industrial course where 
there arc no trade schools or where specific trade education is 
not wanted. Such a broadened and deepened manual training 
course would go a long ways to reach that great number c>\ 
boys and girls who do not wish, or cannot spend the time for 
learning a trade. This manual training course could be so 



arranged that it would cover the two years from leaving the 
grammar school to entering a definite vocation without interfer- 
ing with the high school. It the States would subsidize manual 
training^ it would go a great ways to make this asset a very 
valuahle one. For specific trade training in a given industry, 
say the foundry, the industry together with perhaps other indus- 
tries might join in petition to the school authorities for the 
establishment of a trade school. Trade schools are expensive 
and even if we had the money to establish trade schools, we 
would have no trained teachers to take charge of the schools. 
It is difficult enough to get good manual training teachers. 

However, even after we have the schools and teachers and a 
good organization and plenty of money to go ahead with our 
plans, we would still have the problem how to induce the boys 
to spend time in our proposed manual training and trade schools. 
Here the industries must step in and aid the schools by recog- 
nizing the value of such a preparatory course by increased wages 
for the boy who enters the shop from such a school, or lower 
the pay of hoys entering the shops who have not had such a 
schooling. 

The boy or girl who, leaving the grammar school and going 
to work immediately, without having entered the, what we might 
call, preparatory industrial course from 14 to 16 years, but 
has been benefited by the beginning of the course in the gram- 
mar grade, is worth more than the child leaving school at 12 
or 13. On the other hand, the boy having taken this two years 
preparatory industrial course should have such a general me- 
chanical and technical knowledge and manual skill, as to easily 
adjust himself to the special knowledge required in that particu- 
lar vocation. Here also the trade schools would find their sphere 
of usefulness by enlarging one's knowledge in the evening trade 
school in conjunction with the practical shop work during the 
day. The two years preparatory course should be taught in 
separate schools, as a continuation of the common school system, 
and not in connection with the high school. This would relieve the 
high school without hindering it to have a higher industrial 
course and its usual scientific course all in one, thus giving an 
outlet for those who want something higher than what is ob- 
tainable in the preparatory course or in the trade school. 

Such an arrangement would solve the vexed question of what 



6 



to do with the two years after leaving grammar school, which 
are now unproductive from the educational standpoint, it would 
relieve the high school and prevent that mental dissatisfaction 
and reluctance to go back to the shop from the high school, and 
finally it would allow the development of trade schools in a 
natural way according to the natural necessities of an industry 
or group of industries. But the industries must actively and 
effectively help themselves and the school people by recognizing 
the value of such a training by the adjustment of wages paid to 
boys, girls and journeymen, according to the degree of prepara- 
tion with which the young people enter their employment. 

If the Foundry industry, or any other industry, can see its 
way clear for the establishment of local trade schools for boys 
leaving the grammar school, then all the better. But the diffi- 
culty with us in this country is that the 14 year old boy is not 
wanted in the shop and the boy does not know what he wants. 

But since we as a nation, for economic and ethical reasons, 
can no longer afford to have two precious years of millions of 
our young people practically wasted educationally. We owe it to 
ourselves and to our country to remedy that defect, and the 
proposed two years manual training course as a continuation 
of the common school, would seem to offer a way out, if the 
industries regulate their pay according to value received from 
the school. Such a fundamental arrangement would not bring 
an undesirable strain upon the organization of our educational 
system and at the same time offer a maximum of flexibility to 
meet local conditions. If the last two years can be recovered 
by compulsory attendance, all the better. 

Summarizing the conclusions of your committee, the follow- 
ing propositions are respectfully submitted for the consideration 
of the members of the American Foundrymen's 'Association: 

1. Industrial education and trade training, the former to de- 
velop that intelligence and skill of hand necessary to grasp the 
relations of human activities and the latter as a 'preparation for 
the specific work at a trade in a shop, having Become vital issues 
in the life of our industries and the whole social fabric, the har- 
monious and united action of all social forces is needed to estab- 
lish such a system of schools and efficient, we'll paid teachers, 
as will secure for our industries the needed skill and intelligence. 

2. Constant agitation by the members of not only one in- 



dustry, but of all industries and business interests is required 
to convince the people of the necessity of furnishing the means 
to establish such schools and enlarge our system of education. 

3. That such a system of industrial education must include 
not only the skilled mechanics or particular industries, but all 
industrial workers of any kind, skilled or unskilled, male or 
female. 

4. That this industrial education and trade training must not 
only consider the mechanical and technical necessities of the me- 
chanic, but also the culture and moral aesthetic side of life of 
the man and citizen. 

5. That manual training', as now conducted, is too exclusively 
deyoted to the acquisition of manual dexterity, but if broadened 
and deepened and made more technical by the addition of suit- 
able subjects, it can be made an excellent foundation for in- 
dustrial education and become a preparation for trade training. 
Thus, if added as separate courses to the common school system, 
manual training could be made to serve to bridge the educational 
gap from 14 to 16 years of age which are now lost years. On 
account of that gap, due to the indecision of the boy regarding 
the occupation he will follow, a system of specific trade schools, 
in our country, becomes feasible and worth}' of the expense, as 
an additional training only for those who are already actively 
engaged in their chosen vocations. 

6. The burden of conducting these industrial schools should 
be equally divided between the community and the State. 

7. To adjust the wage scale for boys and girls in shops in 
conformity with the standing and practical attainments acquired 
in the industrial schools. 

8. It is considered desirable for all industries to agree upon 
a plan whereby an approximately uniform standard of efficiency 
of school attainment be required of boys and girls seeking em- 
ployment in industrial establishments. 

9. That the Foundryrnen devise some system of imparting in- 
formation on shop practice among their force, either through 
their superintendents or foremen, for the general good of the 
industry. This more particularly in view of the rapidly diminish- 
ing resources of the country. 

Respectfully submitted, 

I*. Kreuzpointner, Chairman. 



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